In Might, authorities arrested Aaron Shamo and accused him of promoting fentanyl. Police stated he accepted Bitcoin as fee and allegedly discovered greater than 500 digital cash in his residence.

Cryptocurrency As A Scapegoat

At roughly the identical time, a rising variety of legislation enforcement officers asserted how Bitcoin was fueling the opioid disaster because it was getting used as a software to buy lethal medicine from locations like China.

Some authorities officers, like Legal professional Normal Jeff Classes, have advocated for anti-money laundering laws that might crack down on digital forex to “assist us make extra arrests of these promoting these lethal substances on-line.”

Nevertheless, analysis exhibits lower than 1% of all Bitcoin transactions have felony undertones. Now there are a rising variety of corporations trying into how blockchain can be utilized to assist stem the opioid disaster.

Blockchain Will get To Work

Business large IBM has been working with the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management (CDC) on an information challenge that would assist flip the tide in opposition to the opioid disaster.

The CDC has been serving to IBM construct a blockchain-based surveillance system to assist hospitals and docs get details about prescriptions. The thought is to get knowledge about what forms of persons are in search of care, in addition to understanding how antibiotics and opioids are prescribed.

In late April, Bloombergreported on efforts by Intel and plenty of well being corporations to provide you with a blockchain-based system to trace the place and the way medicine leak out of the provision chain.

By monitoring medicine and medicines from the producer to their closing vacation spot, some suppose it might be a lot simpler to watch addicted individuals heading to a number of docs for extra prescriptions.